(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

Most of us have had experience like this with an ESL student: Someone is talking for a half a minute or more, and the student is just looking at the person. When the person stops, the student just nods his/her head. The speaker isn’t sure if the student really understood.

There is a technique which students, both the listener and speaker, can uses in conversations to avoid that type of situation.

By doing this, the speaker is able to feel confident that s/he is being understood correctly and the listener can confirm his/her understanding.

Just as with the technique introduced in Part 1, after students have used the two attached handout-activities, they usually find the technique to be a “tool” that they can use not only in group discussions but also when interacting with teachers and others outside the classroom.

International students in Western-style classes often feel ignored during whole-class discussions if the instructor doesn’t directly call on them. In some of the classes, instructors expect students to freely offer their comments or ask question. Also, some hesitate to call on International students because they think those students might feel uncomfortable speaking to the whole class.

This technique, Volunteering an Answer, is very effective in helping even passive students involved in whole-class discussion, and in the process, impressing their instructors.

To help you students become comfortable with this technique, you can use the attached script, which I’ll explain about below. (Notice: for this technique, there is no handout for the student, just a teacher’s script.) Script Whole class Technique 2 Volunteering to answer

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

During a whole-class discussion, one of the students, Santos, made a comment.

Then Mai said, “I’d like to ask Santos a question …”

Then Lan gave her opinion, and Camilo replied, “Lan said something very interesting …”

These students were employing a discussion technique “Responding to Others,” which had taken just 10 minutes for them to pick up.

The concept of whole-class discussions can be an alien one to students from non-Western countries. Students are told that participation in class discussions is expected in Western academic settings and that if they are active participants, it can affect their grade in a positive way. Nevertheless, these students don’t know what “active participation” means, other than to state one’s opinion. For instructors preparing students for mainstream, academic coursework, the techniques introduced in these next postings could help students develop five specific techniques that they can apply to be active.

Five TechniquesResponding to another student’s commentVolunteering an answerRedirecting a question when you don’t know what to sayReporting what someone else has saidSummarizing what other group members have said

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) Follow up questions

This could be one of the most useful researched-backed techniques that your students can learn. If they want to make a positive impression on others during a conversation, they should ask a lot of questions, especially a lot of follow-up questions.

Karen Huang and her research team at the Harvard Business School analyzed more than 300 online and face-to-face conversations between people getting to know each other. In one study, participants engaged in a 15-minute conversation with a randomly assigned person. Some of the participants were told to ask many questions (at least nine) and others were told to ask few questions (less than four). After the conversations ended, the participants told the researchers how much they liked their conversation partner. The results showed that the people who asked more follow-up questions were considered more likeable.

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

You,the conversation teacher, are happy because the noise level in the room is high. That means that the 12 pairs of students (24 total) are engaged in the conversation activity. At the start of the next class, you want to give them feedback on their performance today, especially because you want to give positive comments to those who are very active. There are also a couple of pairs who need some “re-direction.”

Even if you can’t hear them, you can seeif they are engaging in a natural conversation; it looks like ping-pong, in which they are reacting to each other, asking follow-up questions and giving understanding responses. You can also seeif they are more like bowling, in which one monologs for a while while the other “zones out,” then the other monologs. You can seeif someone is dominating and if someone is very passive. Interestingly, you can even seeif they have switch from English to their native language; often when they do this, their voices lower and their faces aren’t as animated perhaps to “hide” from the instructor.

If you suspect that a pair isn’t using natural conversation techniques or isn’t speaking in English, there are things that you can do.

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

There are techniques which guarantee that all students will be engaged in a discussion. In other words, the discussion will look like a game of table tennsi, in which students react and respond to what their group members have said. It doesn’t look like bowling, in which one member tell his/her opinion, followed by a second member, then by a third etc., without necessarily even listening to the other members.

Some of the techniques that compel students to listen to each other and actively interact are:

asking follow-up questions

seeking and giving clarification

using comprehension checks

soliciting more details from others

interrupting others during a discussion

helping the leader of a discussion

A great technique to practice early in a discussion course is “seeking and giving clarifications.” This involves using expressions such “Did you say …?” “I didn’t understand …” “Can you explain … more?”

After students have used the two attached handout-activities, they usually find the technique to be a “tool” that they can use not only in group discussions but also when interacting with teachers and others outside the classroom.

(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)Here is the link to the exercise handout: Expressing opinions

“Ms. Brown, do we really have to do anything we want to do again today?”* Ms. Brown is probably an extreme case of instructors who try to give their students autonomy because they believe students know best what they are interested in.

The chances are that you are from a different culture, different generation and/or different socio-economic group from your students. You probably have a different marital status, different interests and/or different goals. So how can you tap into what will be most stimulating for your students to talk about when they are practicing conversational techniques? In other words, how can you customize the exercise for your current group of students?

A key phrase in the question is “conversational techniques.” Students should be learning techniques that they can apply in conversational situations. Some technique examples are: beginning a conversation, giving understanding responses, clarifying something, politely interrupting someone, rephrasing something, soliciting details, giving opinions, summarizing what was said, ending a conversation.

Let’s say Ms. Brown wants her students to practice giving opinions. To customize the activity, she tells the students to think of topics that are interesting to them, get into groups and tell their opinions. But, without any kind of structure, the students will probably just take turns monologuing, not actually engaging in a conversation.